This guide helps students navigate A.C. Bradley's classic text, while providing an important commentary on the value of Bradley's approach and how it can be adapted to present-day interests. John Russell Brown highlights the advantages of understanding Bradley's methods and provides major insights for any student of Shakespeare.

'John Russell Brown has performed an excellent job in producing a beautifully compact, perceptive and lucid companion to Bradley's magnum opus.' - Robert Shaughnessy, Professor of Theatre, University of Kent, UK

Introduction
PART ONE: PRACTICAL STUDY AND CRITICISM
Verbal and Physical Imagery
Subtextual Meanings, Tensions and Sensations
Action, Narrative and Plot
Characters
The Hero
Contexts
Bradley's Scepticism and Search for a "Tragic Vision"
PART TWO: FROM SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY AND LATER LECTURES
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Biographical Notes

JOHN RUSSELL BROWN is visiting Professor of Theatre at Middlesex University, UK, and was formerly an Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre. He has published widely on Shakespeare, including Shakespeare: The Tragedies and editions of numerous plays. He has directed Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and other tragedies, some of them several times.

A.C. BRADLEY was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford until his death in 1935.